Which? Sanitation and sanatory remedies

Front matter

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A /VITA TI O N

Introduction

Review of the Controversy. — The Battle of the 'Opathies — The basis of the physician's charges should be shifted from that of curing disease to that of preserving health — the Anti- vaccination agitation has answered the whole question — The fallacies of the faculty recapitulated with observations thereon — Word pictures on the vaccination question — J ennerism, " A lying spirit " 19 to 52

Chapter I. — Argument. — That man is a sanatory being, that his diseases are mainly the consequences of neglect of or disobedience to wise sanitary laws, and that the treatment should be sanatory in its character and application. That Sanitation is the only preventive with which to combat all epidemic influences, and that as Sanitation becomes more general in its application, disease forms of the zymotic type will recede and disappear. Including an article on Epidemics, their causes and treatment ... 53 to 87

Chapter II. — Argument. — That the faculty have no specific or treatment for the Smallpox, or for any of the other eruptive or common fevers 88 to 105

Chapter III. — Argument. — That the principle of infection, or contagion, regarding these terms as equivalent with respect to each separate fever, is the product of ineffective, and unsuitable treatment by the faculty, and is not the necessary adjunct of the fever — That the sequelse or after consequences of the fevers, whatever form the fever may assume, so varied, mischievous, and fatal in their character and termination, are likewise the outgrowths of unsanatory treatment to which patients are subjected by allowing each individual fever " to run its course," and are not again the necessary concomitants of the fever ; the sequelse being, in fact, the tribute exacted by nature for misdemeanours in the management of disease 106 to 126

11 CONTENTS.

Chapter IV. — Argument. — That Vaccination has produced a Vaccinal Diathesis in every individual subject to its influence — That Vaccination is blood-poisoning. Contents. — Vaccination a medical heresy— Epidemics are born of unsanitary conditions — The decrease of Smallpox Epidemics coincident with the spread of Vaccination, but not in consequence of it 126 to 128

Chapter V. — The Death Tell-tale. Argument. — That the mortality from epidemic, endemic, and contagious diseases is abnormally high, showing that medicine has no influence over the fever group of diseases, and that the proper remedies should be Sanatory in their character — That the mortality statistics show that certification is not properly carried out, that diseases which always begin with fever, when deaths occur, the deaths are generally certified to causes which are symptomatic and not true death-causes, the effect of which is to hide the truth and to mislead the nation. With articles on Smallpox — Phthisis — Bronchitis — Pneumonia — Atrophy and Debility — Diarrhoea — Convulsions — Typhus —Typhoid — Measles — Scarlatina — Hydrocephalus — Whooping-cough, Diphtheria — Tabes Mesenterica — Syphilis — Scrofula — Erysipelas — Cancer — Other Diseases of Circulatory System- — Cholera — Causes not specified, or ill-defined — " Old Age," as a Death-cause — Classification of Diseases and Certification of Death — Epidemics of Smallpox do not increase the total mortality in the average of years ... 189 to 249

Chapter VI. — Concluding general observations — The true law of cure with regard to the germs of fever, or blood-poisoning—As to Smallpox and its cure — As to Hydrophobia and its cure — As to Tuberculosis and its cure— The open air treatment of fevers — Hydropathy, or the water treatment — Turkish Bath treatment — The infection scare — The importance of a healthy skin — Resume" ... 250 to 362

ERRATA

Page.

2. — 11th line from top, for " exception," read " exemption." 9. — 18th line from bottom, for " pebliscite," reid "plebiscite." 21.— 1 5th „ top, for " its," read " their."

43. — Top line, for " statistics of death-rate," read "mortality statistics." 43. — 4th line from top, for '• death-rates," read "deaths." 44. — Top line, for "death-rates of," read "deaths from." 58. — 12th line from bottom, for " death-rate," read " mortality." 59. — 5th ,, ,, for " sanatarian," read ''sanatorian."

67.— 2nd „ top for "in," read "with."

103.— 8th „ „ for " eaiest," read " easiest."

106. — 8th „ „ for " unsanitary," read " unsanatory."

112. — 3rd „ bottom, delete the words " despumation, or, as it is generally termed."

137.— 7th „ „ for "death-rate," read "mortality."

190. — 14th „ „ for " disappearance," read " infrequency."

191. — 3rd „ top, for " has its," read " have their."

192.— 6th „ „ for " small," read " mention."

198.— 3rd „ „ instead of" in 1666," read "dating from 1666."

210. — 8th „ bottom, for " functions," read " viscera."

221. — 16th ,, „ for " sanitatary," read "sanitary "

(This error does not occur in all copies.)

271. — 5 th line from bottom, for "the treatment," read "the Allopathic

treatment."

297.— 10th „ ,a delete the tvord " him."

Preface

This Book is unsatisfactory to rue. It has been written at intervals. It is fragmentary. It lacks that connectedness which a work written straight off, with the whole gist of the facts fixed, upon the mind, always manifests. The reader must accept the book with all its faults. Book-making is not my forte. Still I have a message and I have delivered it faithfully and fearlessly. I have nothing to gain, little to lose, but much to know. I commend my thoughts to you, gentle reader, rich or poor, learned or unlearned, in the hope that they will bear fruit. If you abhor vaccination as I do, there is work for you in God's sanitary vineyard.1 Best not, I pray you, till the last rag

1 My attention was first directed to Vaccination by hearing the details of a mishap in my own family circle. The grandfather of my first wife was a surgeon practising in a town in the East Riding of Yorkshire. About the year 1808 there was some stir amongst the members of the profession as to the duty of vaccinating their own children, I suppose by way of showing their confidence in the operation. Now the surgeon's wife, — a woman remarkable for her strong common sense, — exhibited considerable reluctance to her own children being dragged at the chariot wheels of this new invader. At length her husband said, " Well, it matters this much to me : if vaccination is not performed in my own family, 1 am so teazed about it that I must give up my profession, and seek for some other means of gaining a livelihood. " This was an argument the wife was not able to resist ; her consent was withheld no longer.

The next question was where to find a health}' child from whom to gather a small harvest of Jenner's " pure lymph." A medical neighbour interested himself in this behalf, and in a few days the opportunity occurred to him, when a young woman, resident in Barnsley, came home with her child, three months old, to visit her parents, and was advised to have vaccination performed by the physician who had attended their own family for many years, and she applied to him accordingly. The child was apparently strong and healthy ; vaccination was perpetrated ; virus was stored from this vaccinifer ; and the two children, ranging from one to three years old. members of the surgeon's family firstly referred to, were vaccinated in due course with the lymph thus acquired.

There was no taint of hereditary disease in the surgeon's family ; his progenitors had been farmers in that part of Yorkshire for two centuries or more ; and the wife's family came from a healthy stock.

of this unclean rite is discovered and cast out! If you deprecate drugs, and all their attachments, as I do, you will avoid medicine and the medicinist, until a better and a wiser teaching accompanies his practice, and guarantees safer results by the adoption of simpler remedies. If your experience of sanatory * appliances in sickness agrees with mine, you will henceforth give shape to your views, and follow

Within twelve months after vaccination the two children sickened ; the ruddy cheeks became pale ; and the whole constitution showed symptoms of some unaccountable yet disastrous change. By a sort of instinct peculiar to woman, the wife insisted that her husband should go to Barnsley to enquire into the antecedents of the parents from whose child the lymph had been abstracted. He went, when, to his dismay, he found that both parents were the offspring of families subject to hereditary consumption. '

The cloud of dejection and regret was never lifted from the future careers of either husband or wife ; and the two children, a boy and a girl, knew not what health was in their after lives. The two grew up tall and handsome ; both married in due time, but the sister only had a family ; she had three boys and a girl.

To cut a long story short, the parents died of consunrption before they reached 46 years of age ; and of the second generation two of the three boys and the sister died of consumption before they attained their 26th year ; the other boy, by emigrating to a warmer climate (Springfield, La. , U. S. ), added ten more years to a weary and painful existence ; — he died of consumption, at 35 years of age.

The sister above mentioned became my wife ; we were first cousins ; she left two daughters ; one died of consumption, in her 26th year ; the other still lives, but she has never known what " life " is ; she has been more trouble in her rearing than all the eight children by my second wife "put together."

Thus the members of a whole family have been hunted out of existence by one unfortunate vaccination. How many similar instances there have been in the same period unrecorded, no one will ever know. Some estimate may be formed when I say that, in my journeyings to and fro in the world, I have never met with an individual whose experience did not run on parallel lines with my own ; he or she had to recount cases of misadventure in his or her family, or in the family of a friend or neighbour. No exception to this rule has presented itself during an advocacy extending over the third part of a century — a remarkable fact ; I give it for what it is worth.

If the people of England knew the full meaning of " Vaccination," of the misery and death, for 92 years last past, of which it has been the sole exciting cause, and if they could but follow the history of each event, with its far-reaching consequences, through three generations of people, not a vaccination station would be standing in England to-morrow night ; nor is there a vaccinator who would ever oe permitted to refer to the subject in any educated family to the end of his days.

1 The terms "Sanitation," "Sanitary," " Sanitive," refer to measures adopted by Municipal Authorities, or by individual members of the community, to prevent disease; whilst the terms " Sanatory," "Sanative," " Sanativeness," " Sanatorium " refer to means which are remedial in their scope.

It will be useful, therefore, to the reader to keep the meanings of the different terms continually in mind. Furthermore, it wili be an aid to him hereafter in consulting works on the cognate questions of "Sanitary Science," and " Sanatory Science."

I must not forget that this work is written for the general public, not the scientist, and I hope it will be introductory, leading to further studies in the field of inquiry under investigation.

Nature's laws more trustingly, more lovingly. Do not shirk responsibility. Nature is omnipotent — trust her. See that no blame lies at your door. As the reproaches of conscience follow the commission of some sin against the moral law, so the manifestation of disease in the body establishes the relation of cause and effect — there has been neglect, indulgence, or disobedience somewhere. Trace it out. Put your finger on the plague-spot. Be careful in your mode of life, your surroundings : be temperate, virtuous, and obedient. In such case you may snap your fingers at infection,1 and you will bear a charmed life when encompassed by epidemic or endemic influences.

I would say a word to you on the following texts, viz : 2

"And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them, Ye shall be holy : for I the Lord your God am holy."

" Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you : I am the Lord."

What marks are these upon the arms of your children ? They are the superstitious marks of that worse than Pagan — Edward Jenner.3 Jenner was a Pagan in thought and action in non- Pagan times. His assumptions were destitute of scientific basis, his facts fictions, his deductions illusory, and his system a fraud.

Header of these lines, I beseech you do not dishonour the God that gave you that child by allowing a medical Hobnail to print any

1 The terms " Infection " and " Contagion" throughout this work are used interchangeably, as meaning the same thing. There are diverse opinions on the subject, but the weight of evidence favours my contention. Notwithstanding the fact that there may be two ways of producing infectious matter — one natural and the other artificial — one as the natural product of unsanitary conditions, and the other the artificial product of a fever, after the crisis, or, in other words, when the fever has " run its course " — still the substance is one and the same in its characteristics.

3 Hunter said to him, "Be sure of your facts." The "facts" he neglected and despised, in 1798, are the facts which have confounded him and his disciples in 1&90. "Facts" are awkward things when they array themselves against us. Yes, they can be terribly vindictive when least expected.

There is no proof extant that Jenner ever mentioned his vaccination theory to Hunter. Hunter was the best qualified to break in pieces this idol with a look, a word, or a gesture. Jenner never put him to the test, else we had heard little of it in subsequent years.

" Be sure of your facts," if uttered by Hunter to Jenner, was a general remark. But Jenner, or his Biographer, adroitly turned it on to the vaccination question, so as to give a sort of countenance to the crazy practice in hand,

G

marks upon its flesh. That human body is God's temple. See you to it, that the marks of no false deity defile it. You may as well revive an old custom, and pass your child through the fire to Moloch ! Was this latter significant of heathendom 1 Yea, verily ; and so is Jennerism. Vaccination belongs to that set of ideas which once suggested the cutting of the flesh to propitiate the gods of Edom on behalf of the dead. Charms, amulets, cuttings of the flesh, the poisoned lancet, and drug specifics, have no place in nature. They are man's impotent devices to contravene or subvert the reign of law and order in his own body, and in the bodies of his kindred in the universe around him.

I have no heart now to fight the pro-vaccinator with decimals and per centages. I have endured that for long enough — a weary task it has been. But it has served its purpose. I take higher ground to-day. I appeal from statistics to the common sense of the nation, and from figures to facts which are well known to the people.

That I have here drawn up an indictment against the drug treatment, the doctors have themselves to blame. I argued with myself, that, if the physician could believe in an absurdity like vaccination, there was no other theory within his practice which, when patiently examined, might not turn out to be equally as futile and as mischievous. I leave the reader to judge whether I prove my case or not.

I should never have written another treatise on the Vaccination question, if it had not been for the fact that I saw, from the constitution of the Eoyal Commission on Vaccination, and from the nature of the evidence already given, that the medical officers connected with the Local Government Board had determined, at all risks, to rivet the chains of Vaccination round the necks of the people for another twenty years or more. To avert a catastrophe of this description, I have once more entered into the controversy, but I shall take a totally different course to any adopted hitherto. I can see this clearly enough, if I continue the bare statistical argument, the ingenuity of the Medical Officers is such, that, as soon as they are driven forth from one statistic, they hide beneath another as false as the last; and this may go on till "the crack of doom."

The only course which promises a speedier issue is to treat the vaccination craze — as it stands at this moment — as a discovered imposture. If medical men are so blind to their own interests as to contend with the people and play the tyrant, it will be perceived that their hand is against every man and every man's hand must be against them. It shall be from this day a warfare carried on by a medical clique in arms against the people, and in opposition to the will of the nation as expressed in large public meetings, to a literature which, it is admitted on all sides, has been able, intelligent, and successful, and to an agitation exhibiting marked elements of expansion and permanence.

There is but one consideration with regard to vaccination now before the country, and the point may be put thus — Is the whole nation to submit to a wicked, senseless and useless observance, with no other reason for it in the wide world than this, viz. , that the medical men may go on drawing their salaries and their fees for performing vaccination, which said vaccination offers no protection against a small-pox epidemic nor the smallest mitigation of an attack of smallpox ; but it yields a regular crop of syphilis, bronchitis, diarrhoea, convulsions, hydrocephalus, scrofula, erysipelas, phthisis, and their companion diseases. This is the true estimate of vaccination. It is the veriest nonsense to talk of vaccination as a protection against ginall-pox, or that it modifies an attack of this disorder. The only protection is in widespread sanitation : and it is sanitation alone, in spite of vaccination, which has dispelled the small-pox and other epidemics which, in the middle ages, were the terror of Europe. And I shall hope to show that the only treatment which can mitigate an attack of small-pox consists in the use of sanatory remedies.

Vaccination, from its first inception, as in every successive stage, has been promulgated and upheld by an interested Physic-ocracy. Vaccination, like inoculation, has been a bloody vendetta of over ninety years' duration ; it is a " Serbonian bog " of corruption, " where armies whole have sunk," and armies whole are sinking still.

Vaccination with the Faculty is purely a money question. I shall drive this nail home at every point ; it is the bone and sinew of the practice. Every argument employed, every statistic requisitioned, finds its inspiration in the money value of the observance. There is no craze so absurd that it could not be legalised with the aid of similar endowments, pains, and penalties.

If the Faculty deny the charge I make, then I challenge them to surrender the public monies and grants they receive, and to let vaccination stand or fall on its own merits. They know too well the truth of what I allege. If vaccination were left to fight its own way in the world it would die of " atrophy and debility " within a twelvemonth — and medical men known it — hence it is not very likely they will trust their craft to the perils of an open sea.

Some may argue, "Why did you not give evidence before the Royal Commission 1 " My reply is, "I object to give evidence before any authority which sits with closed doors, and excludes the press." It is not from any want of respect for the noble President, or the honourable gentlemen who sit upon that Commission.

It may be said, " Your book is one big prospectus for a new Sanatorium in which you take a leading part." I answer, " As soon as I see an authoritative determination to include efficient sanatory remedies in medical practice, my work is done. I have nothing more to say."

In many portions of this work I have referred to the effects of cold water and hot air upon the hody ; such references are only to the effects, and not to the occult processes producing those effects. If the skin were submitted to 300° of heat, or 36° of cold, the temperature of the blood would remain the same, 98°. This temperature could not he raised or lowered appreciably without fatal consequences.

In referring to Infection, and in using such terms as germ or spore, microbe, or other organism, etc., I do not wish to be understood as committing myself, in the present unsatisfactory state of our knowledge, to any particular theory. The germ theory offers the best solution.

The drug treatment is a conspicuous failure. For the fever it is worse than a failure. My answer to vaccination is — cure the Smallpox. Small-pox, and other fevers, are easily cured under sanatory treatment, without producing infection or complication. A healthy man need not fear infection.

Nothing need be said here with reference to the history of vaccination. That side of the question has been exhausted by my friend the late Mr. Wm. White in his " Story of a Great Delusion," by Dr. Creighton in his recent work entitled " Jenner and Vaccination," and by Profr. Crookshank, in the last contribution to Anti-Vaccination literature in his 2 vols, " The History and Pathology of Vaccination." I recommend the reader to add these books to his library, and to those who cannot buy them there is yet the local, or public library which ought certainly to possess copies for circulation.

The anti-vaccinists have, within the last few years, taken a bold yet sensible step. They have asked the members of the Branch Leagues to institute a canvass in towns, villages, and wards of cities, in order to ascertain how far the masses are opposed to compulsory vaccination. Now, the result is exactly what has been predicted. Eighteen years back I said, and I am only one of the prophets, that 80 per cent, of the people would vote against the rite, if they were asked their honest opinion.1 The plebiscite confirms that view. To carry blood-poisoning among the children of the poor — where nearly every unhealthy and predisposing condition, in different degrees, suitable to the development of fever in its multiform phases, is present, is the height of human folly, and the consequences could not fail to be disastrous. That medical men who, of all men, ought to protect the public from a practice so glaring and so fatal, should be the voluntary agents in carrying out the enforcement of the rite, is a contradiction irreconcileable only on one hypothesis, viz., that their pecuniary interests are so deeply involved in it. There is no other possible answer. The next pebliscite will embrace two other questions : — First, Have you any confidence in physic ] Second, If medical men can practise vaccination, is it not fair to presume that the drug-remedy which they recommend is irrational, unsafe, and contrary to the laws of Nature : and will it not be wiser to abandon physic and adopt a simple, effective, and inexpensive sanatory treatment 1

1 Although the voting papers only asked the householders' views as to the principle of compulsion, yet we claim nearly the whole of these votes against vaccination z-er se. Compulsion is principally adopted by Members of Parliament, Guardians, and others, who have a point to gain. Non-compulsion is a kind of half-way-house, a compromise to conciliate voters who are far in advance of their better educated neighbours.

Again, we are at present — that is before the Royal Commission, — going in to abrogate the compulsory laws, so the plebiscite was carried out to assist that object only. The people said, " Why ask us to express our views on compulsion ? it is the thing itself we hate." It required pressure and argument to induce others to accept the lower standard even for a temporary purpose.

INTRODUCTION

The history of modern times has furnished us with singular illustrations of that remarkable prescience exhibited by men who, thoughout a long series of years, have devoted themselves to one particular line of thought and action.

In the year 1856, Sherard Osborne published his book on the discovery of the North- West Passage by Captain McClure, of the Investigator, during the years 1850 — 4, and he mentions therein a striking incident in the life of the late Sir John Barrow, F. R.S. He says, "In October, 1817, Sir John Barrow published a small diagram to illustrate an article of his upon the existence of the North- West Passage, which is now before us, and although he was only then in possession of the information which we have said England possessed at the end of the eighteenth century, yet guided by a clear judgment, and a thorough knowledge of the subject, he filled up the deficient coast in so correct a line that the charts of to-day, upon the same scale, vary little from his."

During Barrow's lifetime Parry demonstrated the exactness of one half of this prophetic chart, and after his death, Franklin and McClure proved the other half to be ecpially correct in its essential features.

Again, in Jeaffreson's Life of Eobert Stephenson, published in 18G4, it is said of the celebrated engineer, that in February, 1830, in his " Observations on the Comparative Merits of Locomotive and Fixed Engines," he predicted, that " On a level railway a locomotive engine, weighing 4 to 5 tons, will convey 20 tons of goods, exclusive of carriages, at the rate of 12 miles an hour." On September 15th, in the same year, the opening day of the Liverpool and Manchester line, the train which carried the mutilated body of poor Mr. Huskisson, to his residence at Eccles, travelled at the rate of 36 miles an hour.

Stephenson knew that steam was a mighty power, and if he had communicated his real ideas with regard to it, instead of the above moderate estimate, he would have been deemed an enthusiast unworthy of patronage. His prediction, however, received its fulfilment the first day the engine was put to the test. The engineer slept peacefully and proudly that night.

Now when Sir John Barrow drafted his chart he might have been asked, " What precedent have you for so strange a prediction 1 " " What do 1 want with precedents 1 " he might reply, " I am my own precedent. A long course of study enables me to form opinions which other men never dream of, and there I leave them until some future expedition shall prove or disprove their accuracy." It was similar prevision with reference to the power of steam as a motor which inspired Stephenson when he foretold the capacity of the railway engine to accomplish the ends he had in view. If Stephenson had been asked for a precedent I can imagine his answer, " Do not bother me about precedents. Genius is its own precedent. I am dealing with matters which have occupied my attention for years, day and night, and do you think I can misread my convictions 1 " Sleep itself has revelations for men of his order.

The twelve propositions at the end of the next section contain the views for which I claim some small prescience, considering that they were written as far back as 1872. I may not live to see the day, but each one of them will receive verification during the coming years.

MY FITNESS AS AN EXPERT IN SANITARY SCIENCE.

I do not for a moment place myself on a level with Barrow and Stephenson. There is no need for that ; but I do claim something of this peculiar prescience — the same in kind, though not in degree — with regard to the many-sided vaccination question. For thirty-seven years it has been my constant study, seldom absent from my mind, excepting during business hours. I have had unusual facilities and fitness for the work. In early life I spent six years in a solicitor's office. My education there has taught me carefulness in examining evidence, strict impartiality in recording facts, and moderation in speech and in writing. A family quarrel drove me from the law and from Yorkshire. I came to London, and passed four years in the Goods Department of the Great Western Railway Company, at Paddington. This work grew distasteful. The monotony of it hecame unbearable. I gave it up, and decided to devote myself to study medicine. I joined myself to a firm of surgeons of good standing in the South of England, under agreement for five years, and began work in real earnest. The dissimulation of the profession, and the thorough deceptiveness of the drug treatment convinced me, after the first twelvemonth's work, that I must after all seek for a more congenial atmosphere in the teachings of the Hydropathic body. I stayed several months with the late Dr. Edward Johnson,1 of Malvern. After that for nearly eighteen months, I read with a son of his who condixeted a hydropathic establishment at Brighton. It was herein 1853, I became acquainted with the late Mr. John Gibbs's writings, and joined him in opposing the Vaccination Act of that year. Mr. Gibbs was a personal friend of Dr. Johnson. I was intimate with Mr. Badcock, the chemist, of Brighton, who for several years supplied the Vaccination Officers of that town, and of many other towns in England, with lymph which he obtained by inoculating cows with the virus direct from small-pox patients. A large portion of the stock of virus then in use, and from which our present supplies have come down to us, were obtained chiefly from Mr. Badcock, and by him in the way I have suggested. After leaving the South I spent nearly two years at Aylesbury, in Buckinghamshire, where I made the acquaintance of Mr. Ceeley, surgeon, who obtained some considerable notoriety in the profession by his contributions in support of the cow-pox craze. I believe his lymph was obtained by the same method as the one employed by the Brighton chemist. It has been a mistake throughout this controversy, on the part of medical men and historians, in assuming that there ever was such a disease as cow-pox, independently